B y S c o t t E d w a r d A n d e r s o n
P h o t o b y M a t t h e w P l a c e k
COUNTERTENOR ANTHONY ROTH COSTANZO PERFORMS AT THE MAHAIWE’ S SUMMER GALA
We spoke with Anthony Roth Costanzo by phone while the world-renowned countertenor was getting ready to perform at the Palais Garnier in a production at the Opéra National de Paris. This summer, he’ ll trade one of the world’ s grandest stages for one of our most beloved regional ones, headlining the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center’ s annual gala on Sunday, August 2. The event will honor outgoing Board Chair Margaret Deutsch and feature a reception and dinner before Costanzo’ s performance.
Costanzo is perhaps best known for his title role in Philip Glass’ s Akhnaten at the Metropolitan Opera, which earned him a Grammy ® for Best Opera Recording in 2022. He is also the General Director and President of Opera Philadelphia, where he has launched an industry-shaking“ Pick Your Price” ticket initiative, and the Artistic Director of Carnegie Hall’ s
SongStudio program. Although he’ s been to Tanglewood, he has never performed in the Berkshires and is looking forward to the gala performance. As an openly gay artist, Costanzo has made queer visibility central to his artistic mission, inhabiting androgynous and gender-fluid roles while using his singular voice, which defies conventional expectations of the male body, to challenge gender boundaries on the operatic stage.
For readers who may be new to opera: what exactly is a countertenor?
A countertenor is a man who sings in falsetto— and sings operatically in falsetto. Falsetto is everywhere, really. I’ ve just written a book for Farrar, Straus and Giroux called Countertenor, which comes out in October. I talk about how, from Mickey Mouse to Michael Jackson, countertenors are all around us in some sense, because we hear falsetto so much of the time.
But the operatic application makes it feel particularly unusual, coming out of a body that looks quite different than the way it sounds. In terms of range, it varies from one countertenor to another, but generally we sit closer to a mezzo-soprano.
You began performing professionally at age 11— Broadway, film, and concert halls from Berlin to Tokyo. Was there a single moment when you knew opera was going to be your life?
The first opera I did was The Turn of the Screw by Benjamin Britten. I was 13 years old, and I was genuinely drawn to the psychological complexity of it. It felt very cathartic and very human, and I’ ve never really looked back since that moment. It really grabbed me. I had been singing for a long time at that point, but I felt there was something so emotional about opera specifically. And I am still, to this day,